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Fanusta Global: Bridging the Gap Between India's Skilled Artisans and Discerning Buyers

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Shailander Kumar,Founder and CEO

Shailander Kumar

Founder and CEO

India holds an incredible history and culture of arts and handicrafts. Today, almost every region in India has a particular craft as its specialty – right from Bandhni of Gujarat, Kalamkari of Andhra Pradesh to Chikankari of Uttar Pradesh and Kanjeevaram Silk of Tamil Nadu. Apart from these traditional arts, estimates suggest that India has over nine million artisans who are adept at making some of the most interesting and beautiful works of art and craft around India. However, most of these artisans are exploited by the middlemen and traders, resulting in artisans moving to different cities and different professions to earn minimum daily-wages to support their family. With a vision to combat the slow extinction of Indian art and to bring the dying arts back to the glare of publicity, Shailander Kumar established Fanusta Global – a platform designed to promote handicraft and decor products in all type of materials created with the expertise of master craftsmen from India to the worldwide customers.

Empowering the Rural Artisans of India
Recognizing the aesthetic value of the artwork going unaccounted and that the artisans are limited to livelihood only, Shailander came up with idea of Fanusta -'Master of Arts', and that is when he decided to bring forward artists by creating a platform that would showcase their talent to the world beyond technology. Reliving the inception story of the firm, Shailander Kumar, Founder and CEO, Fanusta Global says, “I had made my way into the industry through a real estate project in 2013, and later on roved into the business of home and office furnishings in 2014. While working in real estate and furnishings industry, we had connected with few craftsmen for customized products. This is when we realized that there is a gap between a craftsmen and the customer. Firstly, the industry has not identified the right market and secondly, the consumer doesn’t get right products and right pricing. The two were a common concern for both of the parties in the process.”

Fanusta Global establishes a direct link with artisans; brings them recognition and respect and establishes fair, transparent trade practices. Adding to this Shailander Kumar utters, “With Fanusta Global, we are bridging the gap between local Indian artisans and customers through the medium of art. Our disruptive business model works through elimination of middle men and directing the motion of advantage towards artisans, creating a direct link between the customers and the crafts people, thus helping artisans derive a fair price for their art. With design interventions as well, we aim to bring out new opportunities on a global platform for the artisans practicing traditional crafts in our country. The age-old technique is utilized in creating products that can compete in the current market. Thus, through Fanusta we help in sustaining artisanal communities by preserving the traditional art.”

Keeping up with the fast-evolving market trends while integrating the same in traditional art and craft
can often be a challenging task at
hand. Hence, Fanusta Global makes sure that its designers work in proximity with the craftspeople to keep innovating and designing products that fit the contemporary living space. “We discover traditional techniques of craft and utilize it for developing products that are contemporary with an essence of traditional art. We work in collaboration with master craftsmen from across the country to bring our client’s vision to life by understanding their taste and melding it with our modern design aesthetics and expertise in art. Each hand -crafted product is a perfect blend of age-old technique and new-age outlook. We also custom design home decor products and unique furniture as per the customers’ needs and curate a truly bespoke experience for them. Handicraft and corporate are two very different streams, but we have incorporated handicrafts in bespoke corporate gifting,” brings up Shailander.

"Fanusta Global establishes a direct link with artisans; brings them recognition and respect and establishes fair,transparent trade practices"

Fanusta Global puts a lot of love into every product it makes and all the team members know from where the product has been sourced or made. To stay ahead, Fanusta design studio also collaborates with the traditional and local crafts people for a fruitful design intervention. “With an aim to preserve age old traditional art, we at Fanusta Global have set up a Design Studio for designing new and customized products with artisans, based on global market trends and customer requirements. With Indian art holding a designated place worldwide, the future looks very promising and e-commerce has created a new market along with domestic reach. Also, we are constantly building our network of hundreds of artisans across India who are the ace players in their craft and help us in experimenting with different materials, designs and techniques to come up with unique, innovative products,” mentions Shailander.


Fanusta Global Team

The caliber of Fanusta is not just restricted to bridging gap between urban and rural folks. Explaining this, Shailander says, “At Fanusta, we embrace our responsibility towards earth, environment and employees. Through our commitment towards contemporizing products by reviving the traditional crafts, we make sure that the materials we use and the products we design will not have any negative effect on the environment and human health. We aim to make a difference in society by sustaining the artisanal communities, providing financial aid for raw materials to the artisans who are skilled but cannot afford the initial cost of raw materials, working on consignment basis with the craftspeople and helping them in marketing their products in the right target market, supporting the local artists and artisans to showcase their art and craft on a global platform, thus creating new opportunities for them, and training the crafts people to enhance their creative capacity and making the craftspeople participate in workshops or exhibitions to bring them closer to the end consumers.”
From an Idea to Business and Beyond
Fanusta Global is changing the perspective of people in the industry by leveraging on cutting-edge technology to provide best in class, affordable and high-quality Indian handicrafts items online right at customers’ doorstep. With the objective to give a different approach to Art and Craft, the firm practices not just out of the box designs and technology as prop up tools but has also employed hundreds of craftsperson who leave no stone unturned when it comes to meeting the inception ideology of the firm. "At Fanusta, we have a stringent system in place to focus on quality and on time delivery which enriches the user experience. As we are venturing into retail space, it will be a great combination and Online to Offline business will definitely create a market niche. In addition to this, we are working on incorporating handmade products in real estate projects as well as hotel properties. Taking handcrafted decor to a new level, we aim to spread these age-old crafts into various spheres of the decor world and promote them to be utilized in contemporary spaces. Through Fanusta, we want to rediscover and redefine age-old arts and crafts of India, promote them on a global stage and make them a part of modern day living," shares Shailander.


Fanusta Global Graph

Born with a core team of four visionaries and four artists, today Fanusta Global has successfully found a place in the sun with its determination and a skilled team of more than 70 artists, which has doubled to a number of more than 500 monthly artist onboarding by March 2020. Aspiring to make its marks across the retail space, Fanusta global is coming up with brick and mortar model by launching its first exclusive store in Jaipur, followed by Pune. The young firm has also appointed master franchisee for Maharashtra state and is planning to open 25 retail stores by 2021.

Pronouncing his insights on the future roadmap of Fanusta Global, Shailander Kumar says,“At Fanusta Global, we believe that persistent efforts are the key to success. We need to set a goal, pull out measures to achieve it and work towards accomplishing it. There is no substitute to hard work. Team is also one of the most vital part for every project. A team working towards a common goal will always do wonders. 'Let everyone grow and we will grow with them' is a firm belief that we abide to and with that vision, in the years to come, we intend to take Fanusta to global level and make it a market leader. We are also trying to bring a personality shift in handicrafts by designing products that turn our customer’s dreams into reality. We are collaborating with young designers who are creative and have a modern approach towards designing so that Fanusta becomes the first choice for consumers looking for home decor, furniture and utility products. With persistent hard work, in coming days we are aiming to nurture a network of more than 500 artists from across India and establish an ecosystem of traditional craftsmen and new-age designers which will go the extra mile to meet the requirements of the buyers.”